Place and Practice in Field Biology

Hannaway Owen , “Laboratory design and the aim of science: Andreas Libavius versus Tycho Brahe”, Isis, lxxvii (1986), 585–610; and Ophir Adi Shapin Steven , “The place of knowledge: A methodological survey”, Science in context, iv (1991), 3–21. Golinski Jan , Making natural knowledge: Constructivism and the history of science (Cambridge, 1998), chap. 3.

Shapin Steven , “The house of experiment”, Isis, lxxix (1988), 373–404; Galison Peter , “Bubble chambers and the experimental workplace”, in Achinstein Peter Hannaway Owen (eds), Observation, experiment, and hypothesis in modern physical science (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 309–73; Forgan Sophie , “The architecture of display: Museums, universities and objects in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 139–62; Gooday Graeme , “The premisses of premises: Spatial issues in the historical construction of laboratory credibility”, in Smith Crosbie Agar Jon (eds), Making space for science (London, 1998), 216–45; Gieryn Thomas F. , “Biotechnology's private parts (and some public ones)”, in Galison Peter Thompson Emily (eds), Architecture and science (Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 281–312; Outram Dorinda , “New spaces in natural history”, in Jardine Nicholas Secord James A. Spary E. C. (eds), Cultures of natural history (Cambridge, 1995), 249–65; Findlen Paula , Possessing nature: Museums, collecting, and scientific culture in early modern Italy (Berkeley, 1994), chap. 3; Secord Anne , “Science in the pub: Artisan botanists in early nineteenth-century Lancashire”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 269–315; and Jackson Myles , Spectrum of belief: Joseph von Frauenhofer and the craft of precision optics (Cambridge, Mass., 2000).

Latour Bruno , “Give me a laboratory and I will raise the world”, in Knorr-Cetina Karin Mulkay Michael (eds), Science observed (London, 1983), 141–70; Latour , The Pasteurization of France (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), chap. 2.

Cittadino Eugene . “‘A marvelous cosmopolitan preserve’: The dunes, Chicago, and the dynamic ecology of Henry Cowles”, Perspectives on science, i (1993), 520–59; Maienschein Jane , “Pattern and process in early studies of Arizona's San Francisco Peaks”, Bioscience, xliv (1994), 479–85; Burkhardt Richard W. Jr , “Ethology, natural history, the life sciences, and the problem of place”, Journal of the history of biology, xxxii (1999), 489–508; and Henke Christopher R. , “Making a place for science: The field trial”, Social studies of science, xxx (2000), 483–511.

Golinski , Making natural knowledge (ref. 1), 98.

On city and country see Cronon William , Nature's metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York, 1991).

Shapin , “House of experiment” (ref. 2), 397. Shapin Steven , A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, 1994).

Boyle Robert also used the literary technique of “virtual witnessing”, as Steven Shapin has called it, but a mimetic style soon gave way to the clipped, placeless, and impersonal style characteristic of modern scientific writing. Shapin Steven , “Pump and circumstance: Robert Boyle's literary technology”, Social studies of science, xiv (1984), 481–520; and Holmes Frederic L. , “Argument and narrative in scientific writing”, in Dear Peter (ed.), The literary structure of scientific argument (Philadelphia, 1991), 164–81.

I know of no critical analysis of the narrative conventions of hunting or natural-history writing. Useful points of entry into the history of travel narratives include Korte Barbara , English travel writing from pilgrimages to postcolonial explorations (London, 2000); Rubiés Joan-Pau , “Instructions for travelers: Teaching the eye to see”, History and anthropology, ix (1996), 139–90; Adams Percy G. , Travel literature and the evolution of the novel (Lexington, Ky, 1983); and Löfgren Orvar , On holiday: A history of vacationing (Berkeley, 1999), part 1. See also Stafford Barbara M. , Voyages into substance: Art, science, nature, and the illustrated travel account, 1760–1840 (Cambridge, Mass., 1984); and Smith Bernard , Imagining the Pacific: In the wake of the Cook voyages (New Haven, 1992).

Wonders Karen , Habitat dioramas: Illusions of wilderness in museums of natural history (Stockholm, 1993).

Porter Roy S. , “Gentlemen and geology: The emergence of a scientific career, 1660–1920”, Historical journal, xxi (1978), 809–36.

Rudwick Martin , “Geological travel and theoretical innovation: The role of ‘liminal’ experience”, Social studies of science, xxvi (1996), 143–59.

Hevly Bruce , “The heroic science of glacier motion”, Osiris, xi (1996), 66–86; Oreskes Naomi , “Objectivity or heroism? On the invisibility of women in science”, Osiris, xi (1996), 87–116. Riffenburgh Beau , The myth of the explorer (New York, 1994).

Kuklick Henrika , “After Ishmael: The fieldwork tradition and its future”, in Gupta Akhil Ferguson James (eds), Anthropological locations: Boundaries and grounds of a field science (Berkeley, 1997), 47–65; Stocking George W. Jr , “The ethnographer's magic: Fieldwork in British anthropology from Tylor to Malinowski”, in Stocking (ed.), Observers observed: Essays on ethnographic fieldwork (Madison, 1983), 70–120.

Grinnell Joseph to Ritter William E. , 29 Feb. 1908; also 31 Mar. 1908, Papers William E. Ritter , box 10, Bancroft Library, Berkeley, Cal. Frederic E. Clements to Robert S. Woodward, 2 Feb. 1919, Carnegie Institution Archives, folder Ecology Projects Proposed, Washington, D.C. Henry A. Gleason to Arthur G. Vestal, 6 Feb. 1912; Gleason to Vestal, 13 Mar., 1 Aug. 1913, all in Arthur G. Vestal Papers, box 2, University of Illinois Archives, Urbana, Ill.

Daston Lorraine Galison Peter , “The image of objectivity”, Representations, xl (1992), 81–128; Daston , “Objectivity and the escape from perspective”, Social studies of science, xxii (1992), 587–618.

Latour Bruno , “Visualization and cognition: Thinking with eyes and hands”, Knowledge and society, vi (1986), 1–40; Latour , Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society (Cambridge, Mass., 1987); and Shapin Steven , “How science travels”, unpublished talk to the Society for Social Studies of Science, October 1997.

Shelford Victor E. , “Ecological succession, II: Pond fishes”, Biological bulletin, xxi (1911), 127–51.

Kohler Robert E. , Landscapes and labscapes: Exploring the lab-field frontier in biology (Chicago, 2002).

For examples of mistaken identity see Nelson Aven , “Popular ignorance concerning botany and botanists”, Plant world, iii (1900), 33–36 (Nelson was professor of botany at the University of Wyoming); Adams Charles C. to Davenport Charles B. , 2 Sept. [1900], Papers Charles B. Davenport , General Series, American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia, Pa.; and Sterling Keir B. , Last of the naturalists: The career of C. Hart Merriam (New York, 1977), 39.

Shapin , “House of experiment” (ref. 2); also Shapin , Social history of truth (ref. 7).

Outram , “New spaces in natural history” (ref. 2).

de Chadarevian Soraya , “Laboratory science versus country-house experiments: The controversy between Julius Sachs and Charles Darwin”, The British journal for the history of science, xxix (1996), 11–A1; Forgan Sophie , “The architecture of display: Museums, universities and objects in nineteenth-century Britain”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 139–62, pp. 151–6. See also Pickstone John V. , “Museological science? The place of the analytical / comparative in nineteenth-century science, technology and medicine”, History of science, xxxii (1994), 111–38.

Gooday Graeme , “‘Nature in the laboratory’: Domestication and discipline with the microscope in Victorian life science”, The British journal for the history of science, xxiv (1991), 307–41, p. 313.

Nyhart Lynn K. , “Natural history and the ‘new’ biology”, in Jardine (eds), Cultures of natural history (ref. 2), 426–43.

Pantin C. F. A. , The relations between the sciences (Cambridge, 1968), 5.

For example, Jordan Kathleen Lynch Michael , “The sociology of a genetic engineering technique: Ritual and rationality in the performance of the ‘plasmid prep’”, in Clarke Adele E. Fujimura Joan H. (eds), The right tools for the job: At work in twentieth-century life sciences (Princeton, 1992), 77–114; and Collins Harry M. , Changing order: Replication and induction in scientific practice (London, 1985), chap. 3.

Summerhayes V. S. Elton Charles S. , “Contributions to the ecology of Spitsbergen and Bear Island”, Journal of ecology, xi (1923), 214–86; and “Further contributions to the ecology of Spitsbergen”, ibid., xvi (1928), 193–268. Elton , Animal ecology (London, 1927).

Crowcroft Peter , Elton's ecologists: A history of the Bureau of Animal Population (Chicago, 1991).

Errington Paul L. , “Some contributions of a fifteen-year local study of the northern bobwhite to a knowledge of population phenomena”, Ecological monographs, xv (1945), 1–34; Errington , “The northern bob-white's winter territory”, Iowa State University Agricultural Experiment Station Research bulletin, cci (1936), 331–433; Errington , “Predation and vertebrate populations”, Quarterly review of biology, xxi (1946), 144–77, 221–45.

Lindeman Raymond L. , “Seasonal food-cycle dynamics in a senescent lake”, American midland naturalist, xxvi (1941), 636–73; Lindeman , “The developmental history of Cedar Creek Bog, Minnesota”, ibid., xxvi (1941), 101–21; Lindeman , “The trophic-dynamic aspect of ecology”, Ecology, xxiii (1942), 399–418; Cook Robert E. , “Raymond Lindeman and the trophic-dynamic concept in ecology”, Science, cxcviii (1977), 22–26; Hagen Joel , An entangled bank: The origins of ecosystem ecology (New Brunswick, 1992), 87–99; and Golley Frank B. , A history of the ecosystem concept in ecology (New Haven, 1993), 48–56.

Shreve Forrest , The vegetation of a desert mountain range as conditioned by climatic factors (Carnegie Institution Publication no. 217; Washington, 1915); Shreve , “Soil temperature as influenced by altitude and slope exposure”, Ecology, v (1924), 128–36.

Sumner Francis B. , “Genetic studies of several geographic races of California deer-mice”, American naturalist, xlix (1915), 688–701; Hall Harvey M. Clements Frederic E. , The phylogenetic method in taxonomy: The North American species of Artemesia, Chrysothamnus, and Atriplex (Carnegie Institution Publication no. 326; Washington, 1923).

Turreson Goete , “The genotypic response of the plant species to the habitat”, Hereditas, iii (1922), 211–350. Turreson , “The selective effect of climate upon plant species”, ibid., xv (1931), 99–152. Clausen Jens Keck David D. Hiesey William M. , Experimental studies on the nature of species, I: Effect of varied environments on western North American plants (Carnegie Institution Publication no. 520; Washington, 1940), 16, 396–401. See in particular Hall Harvey M. to Clements Frederic E. , 19 Feb., 12 Apr. 1925, Papers Frederic E. Clements , box 65, American Heritage Center, Laramie, Wyoming. Hall to John C. Merriam, 1 July 1925, Carnegie Institution Archives.

Clausen , Experimental studies (ref. 34), 4–15. Hall Harvey M. to Merriam John C. , 18 June, 1, 18 Sept., 20 Oct. 1926, Carnegie Institution Archives. Hall to Frederic E. Clements, 10 Aug. 1923, Clements Papers, box 63.

Hall Harvey M. to Clements Frederic E. , 14 Mar. 1924, Clements Papers, box 64. Clausen , Experimental studies (ref. 34); Clausen Jens , Stages in the evolution of plant species (Ithaca, 1951).

Odum Howard T. , “Trophic structure and productivity of Silver Springs, Florida”, Ecological monographs, xxvii (1957), 55–112; Odum , “Primary production in eleven Florida springs and a marine turtlegrass community”, Limnology and oceanography, ii (1957), 85–97.

Odum Howard T. Odum Eugene , “Trophic structure and productivity of a windward coral reef community on Eniwetok Atoll”, Ecological monographs, xxv (1955), 291–320; Bormann Frank Herbert Likens Gene E. , “Nutrient cycling”, Science, clv (1967), 424–9; Likens Gene E. Bormann Frank Herbert , Biogeochemistry of a forested ecosystem (New York, 1977), 1–29; Odum Eugene P. , “Energy flow in ecosystems: A historical review”, American zoologist, viii (1968), 11–18. Golley , History of the ecosystem concept (ref. 31); Hagen , Entangled bank (ref. 31).

Rudwick Martin J. S. , “Encounters with Adam, or at least the hyaenas: Nineteenth-century representations of the deep past”, in History, humanity and evolution, ed. by Moore James R. (New York, 1989), 231–52, p. 239.

Sumner , “Genetic studies” (ref. 33), 696–7. See also Clements Frederic E. , “The relict method in dynamic ecology”, Journal of ecology, xxii (1934), 39–68, pp. 41–42, 46; Hall Clements , Phylogenetic method (ref. 33), 20–22; and Adams Charles C. , “The variations and ecological distribution of the snails of the genus Io”, Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, xii/2 (1915), 1–184, pp. 7–8.

Pantin Carl F. A. , The relations between the sciences (Cambridge, 1968), 16–17. For a similar argument in cultural ecology see Freilich Morris , “The natural experiment, ecology and culture”, Southwestern journal of anthropology, xix (1963), 21–39.

Weiner Jonathan , The beak of the finch: A story of evolution in our time (New York, 1994); Goldschmidt Tijs , Darwin's dreampond: Drama in Lake Victoria (Cambridge, Mass., 1996); Cooper William S. , “The recent ecological history of Glacier Bay, Alaska”, Ecology, iv (1923), 93–128, 223–46, 355–65; and MacDougal Daniel T. , The Salton Sea (Carnegie Institution Publication no. 193; Washington, 1914).

Grinnell Joseph , “The English sparrow has arrived in Death Valley: An experiment in nature”, American naturalist, liii (1919), 468–72.

For example: Grinnell Joseph , “The origin and distribution of the chestnut-backed chickadee”, Auk, xxi (1904), 364–82; Ruthven Alexander G. , “Variations and genetic relationships of the gartersnakes”, Bulletin of the United States National Museum, lxi (1908); Kinsey Alfred C. , “The Gall Wasp Genus Cynips: A study in the origin of species”, Indiana University studies, xvi (1929), 1–507.

Mayr Ernst , Systematics and the origin of species from the point of view of a zoologist (New York, 1942; new edn, Cambridge, Mass., 1999), 173–85; Mayr , “Speciation phenomena in birds”, American naturalist, lxxiv (1940), 249–78, pp. 266–74.

Mayr , Systematics and the origin (ref. 45), pp. xxii–xxiii, and chaps. 5–7; Mayr , “Speciation phenomena” (ref. 45).

Shelford Victor E. , “Ecological succession, I: Stream fishes and the method of physiographic analysis”, Biological bulletin, xxi (1911), 9–34.

Warming Eugenius , Oecology of plants: An introduction to the study of plant communities (Oxford, 1909; first published in Danish in 1895); Climents Frederic E. , Plant succession: An analysis of the development of vegetation (Carnegie Institution Publication no. 242; Washington, 1916). See also MacMillan Conway , “On the formation of circular muskeag in Tamarack swamps”, Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, xxiii (1896), 500–7.

Shelford , “Ecological succession, I” (ref. 47), 31–33.

Cowles Henry C. , “Ecological relations of vegetation on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan”, Botanical gazette, xxvii (1899), 36–91, 95–117, 167–202, 281–308, 361–91; Olson Jerry S. , “Rates of succession and soil changes on southern Lake Michigan sand dunes”, Botanical gazette, cxix (1958), 125–70, pp. 126–31.

Shelford , “Ecological succession, II” (ref. 18), 128–35; Shelford , “Ecological succession, III: A reconnaissance of its causes in ponds with particular reference to fish”, Biological bulletin, xxi (1911), 1–38.

Cowles Henry C. , “The causes of vegetative cycles”, Botanical gazette, li (1911), 161–83, pp. 181–2; Adams Charles C. , “Postglacial origin and migrations”, Journal of geography, i (1902), 303–10, 352–7, pp. 356–7; and MacMillan Conway , Metaspermae of the Minnesota Valley (Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota Botanical Series 1; Minneapolis, 1892), 584. This visual habit of seeing places in time was probably deeply rooted in the history of the field sciences; see Rudwick , “Encounters with Adam” (ref. 39), and Rudwick Martin J. S. , Scenes from deep time: Early pictorial representations of the prehistoric world (Chicago, 1992).

Anderson Edgar , Introgressive hybridization (New York, 1949); Anderson , “Hybridization of the habitat”, Evolution, ii (1948), 1–9; and Anderson , “Introgressive hybridization”, Biological reviews, xxviii (1953), 280–307.

Viosca Percy Jr , “The irises of southestern Louisiana: A taxonomic and ecological interpretation”, Bulletin of the American Iris Society, April 1935, 3–56.

Anderson , Introgressive hybridization (ref. 53), 1–11; Anderson Edgar , “Man as a maker of new plants and new plant communities”, in Thomas William L. (ed.), Man's role in changing the face of the earth (Chicago, 1956), 763–77. The belts of parallel wagon tracks crisscrossing the arid plains of Colorado — Abandoned as the area was squared and fenced for farming — Could likewise be read as serial “experiments” in grassland succession, see Shantz Homer L. , “Plant succession on abandoned roads in eastern Colorado”, Journal of ecology, v (1917), 19–40.

Provine William B. , “Francis B. Sumner and the evolutionary synthesis”, Studies in the history of biology, iii (1979), 211–40.

Sumner Francis B. , “Desert and lava-dwelling mice, and the problem of protective coloration in mammals”, Journal of mammalogy, ii (1921), 75–86, pp. 79–83; Sumner , “The supposed effects of the color tone of the background upon the coat color of mammals”, ibid., v (1924), 81–113.

Sumner , “A proposed collecting trip in Northern Arizona”, to Grinnell Joseph , 13 Dec. 1921; Sumner to Grinnell, 13 Mar., 23 Oct., 12 Nov. 1922; Sumner to Swarth Harry , 24 Dec. 1922, 12 Jan., 31 Jan. 1923; all in Papers Joseph Grinnell , Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley, Cal.

Sumner Francis B. , “An analysis of geographic variation in mice of the Peromyscus polionotus group from Florida and Alabama”, Journal of mammalogy, vii (1926), 149–84, pp. 150–4. See also Sumner to Vaughan T. Wayland , 7 May 1925, Sumner Francis B. Family Papers, box 1, folder 7, Scripps Institution for Oceanography, La Jolla, Cal.; Sumner , “Memorandum to Dr. Vaughan”, 5 Oct. 1925, Frances B. Sumner Papers, box 5, folder 535, Scripps Institution of Oceanography; Sumner to Grinnell Joseph , 23 Oct. 1927, Papers Grinnell ; and Sumner , “Report of work accomplished”, n.d. [20 Aug. 1928], Carnegie Institution Archives. Provine, “Francis B. Sumner” (ref. 56).

On narrative modes see Bazerman Charles , Shaping written knowledge: The genre and activity of the research article in science (Madison, 1991); and Myers Greg , Writing biology: Texts in the social construction of scientific knowledge (Madison, 1990), chap. 5.